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THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 



A PARAPHRASE OF DR. KARL ROSENKRANZ'S 
PAEDAGOGIK ALS SYSTEINI. 



PAET T. 

CONTAINING ''THE NATURE, FORM, AND LIMITS OF EDUCATION,' 
WITH ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY. 



By A]S^:^^A c. brackett. 



ST. LOUIS: 
G. I. JONES AND COMPANY. 

1878. 



JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY, IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 

It is intended as a vehicle for such transhxtions, commentaries, and original articles 
as will best promote the interests of Speculative Philosophy in all its departments. 

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: 

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CONTENTS OF THE TWELFTH VOLUME. 



Contents of No. 1. 

1. Spencer's Definition of Mind. 
II. Hegel on S.vmbolic Art. 

III. The Nation ;niil the Commune. 

IV. The Science of Kdiication. 
V. Boole's L(ii;-ic:il .^Icthod. 

VI. Notes anil Discussions: — O) Sonnet 
to the \'fnus of Milo; (2) Emanuel 
Hvalgren's System; (3) Notes on 
Hcfrel and his Critics; (4) Sentences 
in Prose and Verse. 



Contents of No. 2. 



I. The AVoild as Force. 
II. Von Ilai-tnuinii on the True and False 
in Darwinism. 

III. Hegel on Classic Art. 

IV. Fichte's Criticism of Schelling. 
V. Christianity and the Clearing-up. 

VI. Schelling on the Historical Construc- 
tion of Christianity. 
VII. Notes and Discussions: — In Memo- 
riani. 



Contents of No. 3. 

I. Some Considerations on the Notion of 

Space. 
II. Brute and Human Intellect. 

III. Hegel on Classic Art. 

IV. The Science of Education. 

V. Fichte's Criticism of Schelling. 
VI. Notes and Discussions: — (1) Sentences 
in Prose and Verse ; (2) Spiritual 
Epigrams; (3) A Fragment of the 
" Semitic" Philosopoy; (4) Dr. Pflei- 
derer's Philosophy of Religion ; 
(5) On the Multiplicity of Conscious 
Beings; (6) Polycrates sends Ana- 
creon Five Talents. 

Contents of No. 4. 
I. Christianity and the Clearing-up. 
II. Scliiller's Ktliical studies. 
III. Jacobi and the Philosophy of Faith. 
I\'. Hegel on Komantic Art. 
V. Statement and Reduction of Syllogism. 
VI. Notes and Discussions: — (1) The Mor- 
al Purpose of Tourgueneff ; (2) Dr. 
Parson's Translation of Dante's 
Purgatorio. 



N. B.— Creen muslin covers for bindiivg tlie Journal can be had at 40 cents each (including 
postage). Any one sending for covers sliould specify whicli volume he wishes to l>ind, inas- 
much as the ninth is thicker than the others. Volumes I and II, bound together, are 
the same thickness with Vol. IX. 



THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 



A PARAPHRASE OF DR. KARL ROSENKRANZ'S 
PAEDAGOGIK ALS SYSTEM. 



^b;./ ^ 
\^\^ 



By anna C. BHACKETT 



ST. LOUIS: 
0. I. JONES AND COMPANY 

1878. 




Kiitered according to Acl of Congress, in (he year 1878, )>y 

WILLIAM T. IIAKUIS, 
111 the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



The translation of "Pedagogics as a Sj'stem " was prepared and 
published five years ago. The wide demand for it that has made 
itself known since that time, especial!}' in normal schools, has proved 
the value of such works in the domain of education. At the same 
time, the difficulty the students have always found in its»use — a diffi- 
culty inseparable from any translation of a German metaphysical 
treatise — has led us to the conviction that a paraphrase into a more 
easily understood form is a necessity, if the thought of Rosenkranz 
is to l)e appropriated by the very class who are most in need of it. 
As was remarked in the preface to the translation, we have in English 
no other work of similar size which contains so much that is valuable 
to those engaged in the work of education. It is no compendium of 
rules or formulas, but rather a systematic, logical treatment of the 
subject, in which the attention is, as it were, concentrated upon the 
whole problem of education, while that problem is allowed to work 
itself out before us. To paraphrase the text — or, rather, to translate 
it from the metaphysical language in Avhicli it at present appears into 
a language more easy of comprehension — without losing the real sig- 
nificance of the statements, is the task which is here luidertaken. 
Free illustrations and suggestions have l)een interwoven to give point 
and application to the thoughts and principles stated. This transla- 
tion, or paraphrase, follows the paragraphs of the original and of the 
first translation. The analysis of the whole work, as it appeared in 
the original translation, is appended at the end of the "Introduc- 
tion," as a guide to the student. 



THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATIOK 



INTRODUCTION. 

§ 1, The science of Pedagogics ma}^ be called a secoiid- 
nry science, inasmuch as it derives its principles from others. 
In this respect it diflers from Mathematics, which is independ- 
ent. As it concerns the development of the human intelli- 
gence, it must wait upon Psychology for an understanding of 
that upon which it is to operate, and, as its means are to be 
sciences and arts, it must wait upon them for a knowledge of 
its materials. The science of Medicine, in like manner, is 
dependent on the sciences of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, 
etc. Moreover, as Medicine may have to deal with a healthy 
or unhealthy body, and may have it for its province to pre- 
serve or restore health, to assist a natural jjrocess (as in the 
case of a broken bone), or to destroy an unnatural one (as in 
the case of the removal of a tumor), the same variety of work 
is imposed upon Education.^ 

§ 2. Since the rules of Pedagogics must l)e extremely 
flexible, so that they may be adapted to the great variety of 
minds, and since an infinite variety of circumstances may arise 
in their application, we find, as we should expect, in. all edu- 
cational literature room for ^widely differing opinions and the 
wildest theories : these numerous theories, each of which 



1 The parallelism between these two sciences, Medicine and Education, is an 
■obvious point, which every student will do well to consider. 



6 TJie Science of Education. 

may have a strong influence for a season, only to be over- 
thrown and replaced by others.- It must be acknowledged 
that educational literature, as such, is not of a high order. 
It has its cant like religious literature. Many of its faults, 
however, are the result of honest eftbrt, on the part of teach- 
ers, to remedy existing defects, and the authors are, therefore, 
not harshly to be blamed. It is also to be remembered that 
the habit of giving reproof and advice is one fastened in them 
by the daily necessity of their professional work.^ 

§ o. As the position of the teacher has ceased to be 
undervalued, there has been an additional impetus given to 
self-gloritication on his part, and this also — in connection with 
the fact that schools are no longer isolated as of old, but sub- 
ject to constant comparison and competition — leads to much 
careless theorizing among its teachers, especially in the literary 
iield. 

§ 4. Pedagogics, because it deals with the human spirit, 
belongs, in a general classification of the sciences, to the 
philosophy of spirit, and in the philosophy of spirit it must be 
classified under the practical, and not the merely theoretical, 
division. For its problem is not merely to comprehend the 
nature of that with which it has to deal, the human spirit — • 
its problem is not merely to influence one mind (that of the 
pupil) by another (that of the teacher) — but to influence it 
in such a Avay as to i)roduce the mental freedom of the pupil. 
The problem is, therefore, not so much to obtain performed 
works as to excite mental activity. A creative process is 
required. The pupil is to l)e forced to go in certain beaten 
tracks, and yet he is to be so forced to go in these that he shall 
go of his own free will. All teaching which does not leave 
the mind of the pupil free is unworthy of the name. It is 
true that the teacher must understand the nature of mind, as 



2 This will again remind the student of the theories of treatment in medicine 
in diseases which, in the seventeenth century, were treated only by bleeding and 
emetics, are now treated by nourishing food, and no medicines, etc. 

3 The teacher will do well to consider the probable result of the constant asso- 
ciation with mental inferiors entailed by his work, and also to consider what 
counter-irritant is to be applied to balance, in his character, this unavoidable- 
tendency. 



The Science of Education. 7 

he is to deal with mind, but when he has done this he has still 
his main principle of action unsolved ; for the (piestion is, 
knowing the nature of the mind, How shall he incite it to 
action, already predetermined in his own mind, without 
depriving the mind of the pupil of its own free action? How 
shall he restrain and guide, and yet not enslave? 

If, in classifying all sciences, as suggested at the beginning 
of this section, we should ><ubdivide the practical division of tlu^ 
Philosophy of Spirit, which might be called Ethics, one could 
find a lilace for Pedaii'oo'ics under some one of the oTades of" 
Ethics. The education which the child receives through the 
influence of family life lies at the Inisis of all other teaching, 
and what the child learns of life, its duties, and possibilities, 
in its OAvn home, forms the foundation for all after-work. On 
the life of the family, then, as a presupposition, all systems of 
Education must l)e built. In other words, the school must 
not attempt to initiate the child into the knowledge of the 
world — it nuist not assume the care of its first training ; that 
it must leave to the family.** But the science of Pedagogics 
does not, as a science, properly concern itself Avith the family 
education, or with that point of the child's life which is domi- 
nated ])y the family infiuence. That is education, in a certain 
sense, without doubt, but it does not properly belong to a 
science of Pedagogics. But, on the other hand, it must 1)e 
rememliered that this science, as here expounded, presupposes 
a previous family life in the human ])eing with whom it has to 
deal. 

§ 5. Education as a science will present the necessary 
and universal principles on which it is based ; Education as 
an art will consist in the practical realization of these in the 
teacher's work in special places, under special circumstances, 
and with special pupils. In the skillful application of the 
principles of the science to the actual demands of the art lies 
the opportunity for the educator to prove himself a creative 
artist ; and it is in the difficulty involved in this practical 



* The age at which the child should bo subject to the training of school life, or 
Education, properly so-called, must vary with different races, nations, and difl'er- 
ent children. 



8 TJie Science of Education. 

work that the interest and charm of the educator's work 
consists. 

The teacher must thus adapt himself to the pupil. But, in 
doing so, he must have a care that he do not carry this adapta- 
tion to such a degree as to imply that the pupil is not to 
change ; and he must see to it, also, that the pupil shall always 
l>c Avorked upon by the matter Avhich he is considering, and 
not too much hy the personal influence of the teacher through 
whom he receives it.^ 

§ G. The utmost care is necessary lest experiments which 
have proved successful in certain cases should be generalized 
iuto rules, and a formal, dead creed, so to speak, should be 
iidopted. All professional experiences are valuable as mate- 
rial on which to base new conclusions and to make ncAv plans, 
but only for that use. Unless the day's work 'is, every day, a 
new creation, a fatal error has been made. 

•S 7. Pedasoo'ics as a science must consider Education — 

( 1 ) In its general idea ; 

( 2 ) In its diflerent phases ; 

(o) In the special systems arising from this general idea, 
acting under special circumstances at special times. ^ 

§ 8. With regard to the First Part, we remark that by Edu- 
cation, in its general idea, Ave do not mean any mere history of 
IV'dao-ooics, nor can any historv of Pedagoo-ics be substituted 
for a systematic exposition of the underlyiug idea. 

§ 9. The second division considers Education under three 
heads — as physical, intellectual, and moral — and forms, gen- 
erally, the principal part of all pedagogical treatises. 

In this part lies the greatest difficulty as to exact limita- 
tion. The ideas on these diAdsious are often undetined and 
apt to be confounded, and the detail of Avhich they are capa- 
\)\q is almost unlimited, for avc miiiht, under this head, speak 



"' The best educator is he who makes his pupils independent of himself. This 
implies on the teacher's part an ability to lose himself in his work, and a desire 
for the real growth of the pupil, independent of any personal fame of his own — 
H disinterestedness which places education on a level with the noblest occupations 
of man. 

'' See analysis. 



Tlte Science of Education. 9 

of all kinds of special schools, such as those for war, art, 
mining, etc. 

§ 10. In the Third Part we consider the different realizations 
of the one general idea of Pedagogics as it has developed itself 
under diflerent circumstances and in different ages of the world. 

The general idea is forced into different phases by the 
varying ph37sical, intellectual, and moral conditions of men. 
The result is the different systems, as shown in the analj^sis. 
The general idea is one. The view of the end to l)e obtained 
determines in each case the actualization of this idea. Hence 
the different systems of Education are each determined by the 
stand-point from which the general ideal is viewed. Proceed- 
ing in this manner, it might be possible to construct a history 
of Pedagogics, a 2»'iori, without reference to actual history, 
since all the possible systems might be inferred from the 
possible definite number of points of view. 

Each lower stand-point will lead to a higher, but it will not 
l)(' lost in it. Thus, where Education, for the sake of the 
nation,^ merges into the Education l)ased on Christianity, the 
form is not thereby destro3^ed, but, rather, in the transition 
iirst attains its full realization. The systems of Education 
which were based on the idea of the nation had, in the full- 
ness of time, outgrown their own limits, and needed a new 
form in order to contain their own true idea. The idea of the 
nation, as the highest principk^ gives way for that of Chris- 
tianity. A new life came to the old idea in what at first 
seemed to be its destruction. The idea of the nation was 
born again, and not destroyed, in Christianity. 

§ 11. The final system, so far, is that of the present time, 
which thus is itself the fruit of all the past systems, as well as 
the seed of all S3^stems that are to be. The science of Pedagog- 
ics, in the consideration of the system of the present, thus again 
finds embodied the general, idea of education, and thus returns 
npon itself to the point from whence it set out. In the First 
and Second Parts there is already given the idea which domi- 
nates the system found thus necessarily existing in the present. 



'• Asiatic systems of Education have this basis (see § 178 of the original). 



10 



The Science of Education. 



First Part, f Its Nature. 
In its General < Its Form. 
Idea. t Its Limits. 

Second Part. [ Physical. 
In its Special ■, Intellectual. 



Elements. 



Moral. 



Education. -J 



Passive. 



National. I '^<^"ve. 



Individual. 



(Tamil V . 
■; Caste." . 
[Monkish 

fMiUtarv. 
I Priestly, 
[industrial 

[".Esthetic 
J Practical 
1 Abstract 
[Individual 



Theocratic. 



China. 
India. 
Thibet. 

Persia. 
Egypt. 
Phtenicia. 

(Jreecc. 

Itome. 
\ Northern 
\ Barbarians 

Jews. 



Third Part. 

In its Particu- ■{ 
lar Systems. 



f Monkish. 



Chivalric. 



Humanita- 
rian. 



For Civil Life. 



For Special j Jesuitic. 
Callings. / Pietistic. 



To achieve 
an Ideal of 
Culture. 



The H u - 

manities. 

I The Phil- 
anthropic 
I Movements 



[For Free Citizenship. 



TJte Science of Education. 11 



FIRST PART. 

The General Idea of Education. 

§ 12. A full treatment of Pedagogics must distinguish — 
( 1 ) The nature of Education ; 
( 2 ) The form of Education ; 
(3) The limits of Education. 

/. — Jlte jyFature of Educcdion. 

§ 13. The nature of Education is determined b}^ the nature of 
mind, the distino'uishino- mark of which is that it can be devel- 
oped only from within, and hy its ow]i activity. Mind is es- 
sentially free — i. e., it has the capacity for freedom — but it 
cannot be said to posses?? frcedoni till it has obtained it by its 
own voluntary eftbrt. Till then it cannot be truly said to be 
free. Education consists in enal)ling a human being to take 
possession of, and to develop himself by, his own efforts, and 
the work of the educator cannot be said to Ije done in any 
sense Avhero this is not accomplished. In general, we may 
say that the work of education consists in leading to a full 
development of all the inherent powers of the mind, and that 
its work is done when, in tliis way, the mind has attained 
perfect freedom, or the state in which alone it can be said to 
be truly itself.' 

The isolated human being can never become truly man. If 
such human beings (like the wild girl of the forest of Arden- 
nes) have been found, they have only proved to us that recip- 
rocal action with our fellow beings is necessary for the devel- 



' The definition of freedom here implied is this: Mind is free when it knosw 
itself and wills its own laws. 



12 The Science of Education. 

oi)ment of our powers. Caspar Haiiser, in his subterranean 
prison, will serve as an example of what man would be without 
men. One might sa}^ that this fact is typified by the first cry 
of the newly-born child. It is as if the first expression of its 
seeminglj^ independent life were a cry for help from others. 
On the side of nature the human being is at first quite helpless. 

§ 14. Man is, therefore, the only proper object of education. 
It is true that we speak of the education of plants and of animals, 
but Ave instinctively apply other terms when we do so, for we 
say "raising" plants, and " training " animals. When we 
*' train " or " break " an animal, it is true that we do, by pain 
or pleasure, lead him into an exercise of a new activity. But 
the difference between this and Education consists in the fact 
that, though he possessed capacity, yet by no amount of asso- 
ciation with his kind would he ever have acquired this new 
development. It is as if we impress upon his plastic nature 
the imprint of our loftier nature, which imprint he takes 
iiiechanicall}^, and does not himself recognize it as his own 
internal nature. We train him for our recognition, not for his 
own. But, on the contrar}^ when we educate a human being, 
we onl}^ excite him to create for himself, and out of himself, 
that for which he would most earnestly strive had he any 
appreciation of it beforehand, and in proportion as he does 
appreciate it he recognizes it joj^fully as a part of himself, as 
his own inheritance, which he appropriates with a knowledge 
that it is his, or, rather, is a part of his own nature. He 
who speaks of "raising" human beings uses language which 
belongs onl}^ to the slave-dealer, to whom human beings are 
ouly cattle for labor, and whose property increases in value 
with the number. 

Are there no school-rooms where Education has ceased to 
have any meaning, and where physical pain is made to produce 
its only possible result — a mechanical, external repetition ? The 
school-rooms where the creative word — the only thing which 
can influence the mind — has ceased to be used as the means 
are only plantations, Avhcre human lieiugs are degraded to the 
position of lower animals. 

§ 15. When we speak of the Education of the human 



The Science of Education. 18 

race, we mean the gradual growth of the nations of the earth, 
as a whole, towards the realization of self-conscious freedom. 
Divine Providence is the teacher here. The means by which 
the development is effected are the various circumstances and 
actious of the dift'erent races of men, and the pupils are the 
nations. The unfolding of this great Education is generally 
treated of under the head of Philosophy of History. 

§ 16. Education, however, in a more restricted sense, 
has to do with the shaping of the individual. Each one of us 
is to be educated by the laws of physical nature — by the rela- 
tions into which Ave come Avith the national life, in its laws, 
customs, etc., and by the circumstances which daily surround 
us. By the force of these we find our arljitrary will hemmed 
in, modified, and forced to take new channels and forms. We 
are too often unmindful of the power with which these forces 
are daily and hourly educating us — i. e., calling out our possi- 
bilities into real existence. If Ave set up our Avill in opposition 
to either of these ; if Ave act in opposition to the laws of nature ; 
if Ave seriously offend the laws, or even the customs, of 
the people among Avhom we live ; or if Ave despise our 
individual lot, Ave do so only to find ourselves crushed in 
the encounter. We only learn the impotence of the indi- 
vidual against these mighty poAvers ; and that discovery is, 
of itself, a part of our education. It is sometimes only by 
such severe means that God is revealed to the man Avho per- 
sistently misunderstands and defies His creation. All suffering- 
brought on ourselA'CS by our oavu violation of laws, Avhether 
natural, ethical, or divine, must be, lioAA';ever, thus recognized 
as the richest blessing. We do not mean to say that it is 
never alloAval)le for a man, in ol^edience to the highest hiAvs of 
his spiritual being, to break aAvay from the fetters of nature — 
to offend the ethical sense of his oavu people, or to struggle 
against the might of destiny. Reformers and martyrs 
Avould be examples of such, and our remarks above do not 
apply to them, but to the per\^erse, the frivolous, and the con- 
ceited ; to those who are seeking in their action, not the un- 
doubted Avill of God, Init their oavu individual Avill or caprice. 

§ 17. But Ave generally use the Avord Education in a still 



14 Tlte Science of Echication. 

narrower sense than either of these, for we mean by it the 
working of one individual mind upon or within another in 
some definite and premeditated Avay, so as to fit the pupil for 
life generally, or for some special pursuit. For this end the 
educator must be relatively finished in his own education, and 
the pupil must possess confidence in him, or docility. He 
must be teachable. That the work be successful, demands the 
very highest degree of talent, knowledge, skill, and pru- 
dence ; and any development is impossible if a well-founded 
authority be wanting in the educator, or docility on the part 
of the pupil. 

Education, in this narrowest and technical sense, is an out- 
growth of city or urban life. As long as men do not congre- 
gate in large cities, the three forces spoken of in § 16 — 
/. €., the forces of nature, national customs, and circum- 
stances — will be left to perform most of the work of Educa- 
tion ; but, in modern city life, the great complication of 
events, the uncertainty in the results — though careful fore- 
thought has been used — the immense development of indi- 
viduality, and the pressing need of various information, Ijreak 
the power of custom, and render a different method necessary. 
The larger the city is, the more free is the individual in it 
from the restraints of customs, the less subjected to curious 
criticism, and the more able is he to give play to his own 
idiosyncrasies. This, however, is a freedom which needs the 
counterpoise of a more exact training in conventionalities, if 
we would not -have it dangerous. Hence the rapid multipli- 
cation of educational institutions and systems in modern times 
( one chief characteristic of which is the development of ur 
ban life). The ideal Telen.iachus of Fenelon difi'ers very 
much from the real Tclemachus of history. Fenelon proposed 
an education which trained a youtli to refiect, and to guide him- 
self by reason. The Telemachus of the heroic age followed 
the customs (" use and wont") of his times with naive obe- 
dience. The systems of Education once sufiicient do not 
serve the needs of modern life, any more than the defenses 
once sufiicient against hostile armies arc sufiicient against the 
new Aveapons adopted by modern warfare. 



The Science of Educaticm. 15 

§ 18. The problem with which modern Eclucatioii has to 
deal may be said, in general terms, to be the development in 
the individual soul of the indwelling Reason, both practical 
(as will) and theoretical (as intellect). To make a child 
good is only a part of Education ; we have also to 
develop his intelligence. The sciences of Ethics and Educa- 
tion are not the same. Again, we must not forget that no 
pupil is simply a human being, like every other human 
being; he is also an individual, and thus differs from every 
other one of the race. This is a point which must never 
be lost sight of by the educator. Human beings may be — nay, 
must be — educated in company, but they cannot be educated 
«imply in the mass. 

§ 19. Education is to lead the pupil hy a graded series 
of exercises, previously arranged and prescribed by the edu- 
cator, to a detinite end. But these exercises must take on a 
peculiar form for each particular pupil under the special cii- 
curastances present. Hasty and inconsiderate work may, hy 
chance, accomplish much ; but no work which is not system- 
atic can advance and fashion him in conformity with his 
tanure, and such alone is to be called Education ; for Educa- 
tion implies l)oth a comprehension of the end to be attained 
and of the means necessary to compass that end. 

§ 20. Culture, however, means more and more every 
year ; and, as the sum total of knowledge increases for man- 
kind, it l)ecomes necessary, in order to be a master in any one 
line, to devote one's self almost exclusively to that. Hence 
arises, for the teacher, the difficulty of preserving the unity and 
wholeness which are essential to a complete man. The prin- 
ciple of division of labor comes in. He who is a teacher 
by profession ])ecomes one-sided in his views ; and, as teaching 
divides and subdivides into specialities, this abnormal onc- 
sideness tends more and more to appear. Here we tind a par- 
allelism in the profession of Medicine, with a corresponding 
danger of narrowness; for that, too, is in a process of con- 
stant specialization, and the physician who treats nervous dis- 
eases is likely to be of the opinion that all trouble arises from 
that part of the organism, or, at least, that all remedies should 



1(5 The Science of Education. 

be applied there. This tendency to one-sideness is inseparable 
from the progress of civilization and that of science and ai'ts. 
It contains, nevertheless, a danger of which no teacher should 
be nnwarned. An illustration is furnished by the microscope 
or telescope ; a higher power of the instrument implies a nar- 
rower field of view. To conceutrate our observation upon one 
point implies the shutting out of others. This diificulty with 
the teacher creates one for the pupil. 

In this view one might be inclined to judge that the life of 
the savage as compared with that of civilized man, or that of a 
member of a rural community as compared with that of an 
inhabitant of a city, were the more to be desired. The savage 
has his hut, his family, his cocoa-palm, his weapons, his pas- 
sions ; he fishes, hunts, amuses himself, adorns himself, and 
enjoys the consciousness that he is the center of a little world ; 
while the denizen of a city must often acknowledge that he is, 
so to speak, only one wheel of a gigantic machine. Is the life 
of the savage, therefore, more favorable to human develop- 
ment? The characteristic idea of modern civilization is : The 
development of the individual as the end for which the State 
exists. The great empires of Persia, Egypt, and ludia, 
wherein the individual was of value only as he ministered to 
the strength of the State, have given way to the modern 
nations, where individual freedom is pushed so far that the 
State seems only an instrument for the good of the individual. 
From being the supreme end of the individual, the State has 
become the means for his advancement into fi-eedom ; ami 
with this very exaltation of the value of the mere individual 
over the State, as such, there is inseparably connected the seem- 
ing destruction of the wholeness of the individual man. But 
the union of State and individual, which was in ancient times 
merely mechanical, has now become a living process, in which 
constant interaction gives rise to all the intellectual life of 
modern civilization. 

§ 21. The work of Education being thus necessarily 
split up, we have the distinction between general and special 
schools. The work of the former is to give general develop- 
ment — what is considered essential for all men ; that of the 



Tlie Science of Education. 17 

latter, to prepare for special callings. Xlie former should 
furnish a basis for the latter — i. e., the College should precede 
the Medical School, etc., and the High School the Normal. 
In the United States, owing to many causes, this is unfortu- 
nately not the ca'se. 

The difterence l)et\veen city and country life is important 
here. The teacher in a country school, and, still more, the 
private tutor or governess, must be able to teach many 
more things than the teacher in a graded school in the city, or 
the professor in a college or university. The danger on the 
one side is of superticiality, on the other of narrowness. 

§ 22. The Education of any individual can be only rela- 
tively tinished. His possibilities are intinite. His actual 
realization of those possibilities must always remain far be- 
hind. The latter can only approximate to the former. It can 
never reach them. The term " tinishing an education " needs, 
therefore, some deiinitiou ; for, as a technical term, it has un- 
donbtedly a meaning. An immortal soul can never complete 
its development ; for, in so doing, it would give the lie to its 
own nature. We cannot speak })roperl3% however, of educat- 
ing an idiot. Such an unfortunate has no power of generali- 
zation, and no conscious personality. We can train him me- 
chanically, but we cannot educate him. This will hell) to 
illustrate the ditlerence, spoken of in § 14, between Educa- 
tion and Mechanical training. 

We obtain astonishing results, it is true, in onr schools for 
idiots, and yet we cannot fail to perceive that, after all, we 
have only an external result. We produce a mechanical per- 
formance of duties, and yet there seems to be no actual mental 
growth. It is an exogenous, and not an endogenous, gi'owth, 
to use the language of Botany.'' Continual repetition, under 
the most gentle patience, renders the movements easy, but, 
after all, they are only automatic, or what the physicians call 
reflex. 

We have the, same result })roduced in a less degree when we 



** Perhaps, however slow tlie growth, there is real progress in liherating the 
imprisoned soul (?) 



18 The Science of Education. 

attempt to teach an intelli_i!:cnt chikl something whicli is be- 
yond his active comprehension. A child may be tauglit to do 
or say almost anything by patient training, but, if what he is 
to say is Ijcj'^ond the power of his mental comprehension, and 
hence of his active assimilation, we are onFy training him as 
we train an animal (§ 14), and not educating him. We 
call such recitations parrot recitations, and, l)y our use of the 
word, express exactly in what position the pupils are placed. 
An idiot is only a case of permanently arrested development. 
What in the intelligent child is a passing phase is for the idiot a 
fixed state. We have idiots of all grades, as we have children 
of all ages. 

The al)ove observations must not be taken to mean that 
children should never be taught to perform operations in arith- 
metic which they do not, in cant phrase, " perfectly under- 
stand," or to learn poetry whose whole meaning the}' cannot 
fathom. Into this error many teachers have fallen. 

There can be no more profitable study for a teacher than to 
visit one of these numerous idiot schools. He finds the alpha- 
bet of his professional work there. As the philologist learns 
of the formation and growth of language by examining, not 
the perfectl}' formed languages, l)ut the dialects of savage 
tril)es, so with the teacher. In like manner more insight into 
the philosophy of teaching and of the nature of the mind can 
l)e ac(piired by teaching a class of children to read than in 
any other grade of work. 

//. — Tlte Form of Education. 

§ 28. The general form of Education follows from the 
nature of mind. Mind is nothing but what it itself creates 
out of its own activity. It is, at first, mind as undeveloped or 
unconscious (in the main) ; but, secondly, it acquires the power 
of examining its own action, of considering itself as an object 
of attention, as if it were a quite foreign thing — i. e., it reflects 
(in this stage it is really ignorant that it is studying its own na- 
ture) ; and, finally, it l>ecomes conscious that this, which it had 
been examining, and of whose existence it is conscious, is its 



The Science of Education. 19 

own self: It attains self-consciousness. It is throuo;h this 
estrangement from itself, given back to itself again and re- 
stored to unity, but it is no longer a simple, unconscious unity. 
In this third state only can it be said to be free — i. e.,to pos- 
sess itself. Education cannot create ; it can onl}- help to de- 
velop into reality the previously-existent possihilit}^ ; it can 
only help to bring forth to light the hidden life. 

§ 24. All culture, in whatever line, must pass through 
these two stages of estrangement and of reunion ; the re- 
union l)eini>' not of two different thiiio-s, but the recoo-iiition of 
itself by thought, and its acceptance of itself as itself. And 
the more complete is the estrangement — i. e., the more per- 
fectly can the thought l)e made to view itself as a somewhat 
entirel}^ foreign to itself, to look upon it as a different and 
independent somewhat — the more complete and perfect will be 
its union with and acceptance of its object as one with itself when 
the recognition does tinally take place. Through culture we are 
led to this conscious possession of our own thought. Phito 
gives to the feeling, with which knoAvledge must necessarily 
beo'in, the name of wonder. But wonder is not knowledue ; 
it is only the iirst step towards it. It is the half-territied 
attention which the mind fixes on an ol)ject, and the half-ter- 
ror would be impossil)le did it not dimly fore1)0(le that it was 
something of its own nature at which it was lookino-. The 
child delights in stories of the far-off, the strange, and the 
wonderful. It is as if they hoped to find in these some solu- 
tion to themselves — a solution which they have, as it were, 
asked in vain of familiar scenes and objects. Their craving 
for such is the proof of how far their nature transcends all its 
known conditions. They are like adventurous explorers who 
push out to unknown regions in hopes of finding the freedom 
and wealth which lies only within themselves. They want to 
be told about things which thev never saw, such as terrible 
conflagrations, banditti life, wild animals, gray old ruins, Rob- 
inson Crusoes on far-oft", happy islands. They are irresistibly 
attracted by whatever is highly colored and dazzlingly lighted. 
The child prefers the story of Sinbad the Sailor to any tales 
of his own home and nation, l)ecause mind has this necessity 



20 The Science of Education. 

of getting, as it were, outside of itself so as to obtain a view 
of itself. As the child grows to youth he is, from the same 
reasons, desirous of traveling. 

§ 25. Work may be defined as the activity of the mind 
in a conscious concentration on, and absorption in, some object, 
with the purpose of acquiring or producing it. Play is the 
activity of the mind which gives itself up to surrounding ob- 
jects according to its own caprice, without any tiiought as to 
results. The Educator gives out work to tlie pu[)il, but he 
leaves him to himself in his play. 

§ 2(). It is necessar}^ to draw a sharp line Ijctween work 
and play. If the Educator has not respect for work as an ac- 
tivity of great weight and importance, he not only spoils the 
relish of the pupil for play, which loses all its charm of free- 
dom when not set off by its antithesis of earnest lal)or, but he 
undermines in tin; pu})irs mind all respect for any real exist- 
ence. On the other hand, he who does not give to the cliild 
space, time, and opportunity for [)lay prevents the originality 
of his pupil from free development through the exercise of his 
creative ingenuity. Play sends the child l)ack to his work 
refreshed, because in it he loses himself without constraint and 
according to his own fancy, while in work he is required to 
yield himself up in a manner [)rescribed for him by another. 

Let the teacher watch his pupils Avhile at play if he would 
discover their individual peculiarities, for it is then that they 
unconsciously betray their real propensities. This tmtithesis 
of work and play runs through the entire life, the form only 
of play varying with years and occupations. To do what we 
please, as we please, and when we please, not for any reason, 
l)ut just because we please, remains play always. Children in 
their sports like nothing l)etter than to counterfeit what is to be 
the earnest work of their after-lives. The little girl phns with 
her dolls, and the boy plays he is a soldier and goes to mimic 
wars. 

It is, of course, an error to suppose that the play of a child is 
simpl}^ muscular. The lamb and the colt find their full en- 
joyment in capering aimlessly about the field. But to the 
child play would be incomplete which did not bring the mind 



The Science of Education. 21 

into action. Children derive little enjoyment from pureh^ 
muscular exercise. They must at the same time have an ol)- 
ject requiring uiental action to attain it. A number of chil- 
dren set simply to run up and down a field would tire of the 
exercise in five minutes ; l)ut put a hall amongst them and set 
them to a game and they will be amused by it for hours. 

Exceptional mental development is always preceded, and is, 
indeed, produced l)y, an exceptional amount of exercise in the 
form of play on the part of the s[)eci;d faculties concerned. 
The peculiar tendencies exhibited in play are due to the large 
development of particular faculties, and the ultimate giant 
strengtii of a faculty is brought al)out by play. The genius is 
no doul)t born, not made : but, although born, it would dwin- 
dle away in infancy were it not for the constant exercise taken 
in play, which is as necessary for development as food for the 
maintenance of life. 

§ 27. Work should never be treated as if it were l)lay, nor 
play as if it were work. Those whose work is creative activity 
of the mind may find recreation in the details of science; and 
those, again, whose vocation is scientific research can find rec- 
reation in the pi-actice of art in its different departments. 
What is work to one may thus be plav to another. This does 
not, however, contradict the first statement. 

§ 28. It is the province of education so to accustom us to dif- 
ferent conditions or ways of thinking and acting that they shall 
no longer seem strange or foreign to us. AA'hen these have 
become, as we say, " natural " to us — when we find the ac- 
quired mode of thinking or acting just what our inclination 
leads us to adopt unconsciously, a Habit has been formed. A 
habit is, then, the identity of natural inclination with the spe- 
cial demands of any particular doing or suftering, and it is 
thus the external condition of all progress. As long as we re- 
quire the conscious act of our will to the performance of a deed, 
that deed is a somewhat foreign to ourselves, and not yet a 
part of ourselves. The practical work of the educator may 
thus be said to consist in leading the mind of the pu})il over 
certain lines of thought till it becomes " natural " or sponta- 
neous for him to 2:0 l)v that road. Much time is wasted in 



22 Tlie Science of Education. 

schools where the pupil's mind is not led aright at first, for 
then he has to unlearn habits of thought which are already 
formed. The work of the teacher is to impress good methods 
of studying and thinking upon the minds of his pupils, rather 
than to communicate knowledge. 

§ 29. It is, at first sight, entirely inclifierent what a Habit 
shall relate to — /. e., the point is to get the pupil into the way 
of forming hal)its, and it is not at first of so much moment 
Avhat habit is formed as that a habit is formed. But we can- 
not consider that there is anything morally neutral in the ab- 
stract, but only in the concrete, or in particular examples. An 
action may be of no moral significance to one man, and under 
certain circumstances, while to another man, or to the same 
man under difterent circumstances, it may have quite a differ- 
ent significance, or may possess an entirely op[)osite character. 
Appeal must be made, then, to the individual conscience of each 
one to decide what is and what is not permissil)le to that indi- 
vidual under the oiven circumstances. Education must make 
it its first aim to awaken in the pupil a sensitiveness to spirit- 
ual and ethical distinctions which knows that nothing is in its 
own nature morally insignifiant or indifferent, but shall recog- 
nize, even in things seemingly small, a universal human signifi- 
cance. But, yet, in relation to the highest interests of morality 
or the well-being of society, the pupil must be taught to subor- 
dinate without hesitation all that relates exclusively to his own 
personal comfort or welfare for the well-being of his fellow- 
men, or for moral rectitude. 

When we reffect upon habit, it at once assumes for us the 
character of useful or injurious. The consequences of a habit 
are not indifferent. 

Whatever action tends as a harmonious means to the realiza- 
tion of our purpose is desirable or advantageous, and Avhatever 
either partially contradicts or wholly destroys it is disad- 
vantageous. Advantage and disadvantage being, then, only 
relative terms, dependent upon the aim or purpose which we 
happen to have in view, a habit which may be advantageous to 
one man under certain circumstances may be disadvantageous 
to another man, or even to the same num, under other circum- 



TJie Science of Education. 23 

stances. Education must, then, accustom the youth to consider 
for himself the expediency or inexpediency of any action in 
rehition to his own vocation in life. He must not form habits 
which will be inexpedient with regard to that. 

§ 31. There is, however, an absolute distinction of habits as 
morally good and bad. From this absolute stand-point we 
must, after all, decide what is for us allowable or forbidden, 
what is expedient and what inexpedient. 

§ 32. As to its form, habit may l)e either passive or active. 
By passive habit is meant a habit of composure which surveys 
undisturbed whatever vicissitudes, either external or internal, 
may fall to our lot, and nniintains itself superior to them all, 
never allowing its power of acting to be paralyzed by them. It 
is not, however, merely a stoical indifference, nor is it the com- 
posure which comes from inabilit}" to receive impressions — a 
sort of impassivity. It is that composure which is the highest 
result of power. Nor is it a selfish love of ease which inten- 
tioually withdraws itself from annoyances in order to remain 
undisturbed. It is not manifested because of a desire to be 
out of these vicissitudes. It is, while in them, to be not of 
them. It is the composure wdiich does not fret itself over 
what it cannot change. The soul that has ])uilt for itself this 
stronghold of freedom within itself may vividly experience 
joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, and yet serenely know that 
it is intrenched in Avails which are inaccessible to their attacks, 
becanse it knows that it is infinitely superior to all that may 
chance or change. What is meant l)y active habit in distinction 
from passive habit is found in our external activity, as skill, 
facility, readiness of information, etc. It might be considered 
as the equipping of our inner selves for active contest with 
the external world ; while passive habit is the fortifying of our 
inner selves against the attack of the external world. The 
man who possesses habit in both these forms impresses him- 
self in many difierent ways on the outer world, while at the 
same time, and all the time, he preserves intact his personality 
from the constant assaults of the outer world. He handles 
both spear and shield. 

§ 33. All education, in whatever line, must work by forming 



24 The Science of Education. 

habits physical, mental, or moral. It might l)e said to consist 
in a conversion of actions which are at first voluntar}^ by 
means of repetition, into instructive actions which are per- 
formed, as Ave say, naturally — /. e., without any conscious voli- 
tion. We teach a child to walk, or he teaches himself to walk by 
a constant repetition of the action of the will upon the necessary 
muscles ; and, when the thinking brain hands over the mechan- 
ism to the trained spinal cord, the anxious, watchful look dis- 
appears from the face, and the child talks or laughs as he runs : 
then that part of his education is completed. Henceforth the at- 
tention that had been necessarj^ to manage the body in walking 
is freed for other work. This is only an ilhistration, easily un- 
derstood, of what takes place in all education. Mental and 
moral acts, thoughts, and feelings in the same way are, by 
repetition, converted into habits and become our nature ; 
and character, good or ))ad, is only the aggregate of our hal)its. 
AVhen we say a person has no character, we mean exactly this : 
that he has no fixed habits. But, as the great end of human 
life is freedom, he must ))e above even habit. He must not 
1)6 wholly a machine of hal)its, and education must enable hiin 
to attain the power of breaking as well as of forming habits, so 
that he ukw, when desiralde, substitute one habit for another. 
For habits may be (§ 29), according to their nature, proper or 
impr()i)er, advantageous or disadvantageous, good or bad ; and, 
according to their form, may be (§ 32) either the acceptance 
of the external by the internal or the reaction of the internal 
upon the external. Tln'ough our freedom we must be able, not 
oul}^ to renounce any habit formed, but to form a new and 
l)etter one. Man should be su[)renie above all habits, wearing 
them as garments which the soul puts on and otf at will. It 
must so order them all as to secure for itself a constant progress 
of development into still greater freedom. In this higher 
view habits l)econie thus to our sight onlj^ necessary acconi- 
paninu'uts of imperf(!ct freedom. Can we conceive of God, 
who is [)erfect Freedom, as having any habits? We might say 
that, as a means toward the ever-more decided realization of the 
Good, we must form a habit of voluntarily nuUving and break- 
iuii" ort' habits. We must characterize as bad those habits which 



The Science of Education. 25 

relate only to our personal convenience or enjoyment. They 
are often not essentiall}^ blameworthy, but there lies in them a 
hidden danger that they may allure us into luxury or effemi- 
nacy. It is a false and mechanical way of looking at the 
affair to suppose that a ha))it which had been formed l)y a 
certain number of repetitions can ije broken off b}' an equal 
number of refusals. We can never utterly renounce a habit 
which we decide to l)e undesirable for us except through de- 
cision and firmness. 

§ o4. Education, then, must consider the preparation for 
authority and obedience (§ 17) ; for a rational ordering of one's 
actions according to universal [)rinci]:)les, and, at the same time, 
a preservation of individuality (§ 18); for work and play 
(§ 2r)) ; for habits of spontanciitv or originality (§ 28). To 
endeavor b}^ any set rules to harmonize in the pupil these o[)- 
posites will be a vain endeavor, and failure in tlie solution of 
the problem is quite possible by reason of the freedom of the 
pupil, of surrounding circumstances, or of mistakes on the 
part of the teacher, and the possibility of this negative result 
must, therefore, enter as an element of calculation into the work 
itself. All the dangers which may in any way thi'eaten the 
youth must be considered in advance, and he must be fortitied 
against them. While we should not intentionall}' expose the 
youth to temptation in order to prove his strength of resistance, 
neither should we, on the other hand, endeavor to seclude him 
from all chance of dangerous temptation. To do the former 
Avould l)e Satanic ; while to do the latter would be ridiculous, 
useless, and in fact dangerous in the highest degree, for tempta- 
tion conies more from within than from without, and an}^ secret 
inclination will in some way seek, or even create, its own op- 
portunity for gratification. The real safety from sin lies, not 
in seclusion of one's self from the world ^ — for all the elements 
of worldliness are innate in each individual — but in an occu- 
pying of the restless activity in other wa3S, in learning and dis- 
cipline ; these being varied as time goes on, according to the 
age and degree of proficiency. Not to crush out, but to direct. 



"When me they fly, I am the wings." — Emerson. 



26 The /Science of Education. 

the child's activity, whether physical or mental, is the key to all 
real success in education. The sentiinentalisni which has, during 
the last few years, in this country (the United States), tended 
to diminish to so great an extent the actual work to be per- 
formed by our boys and girls, has set free a dangerous amount 
of energy whose new direction gives cause for grave alarm. 
To endeavor to prevent the youth from all free and individual 
relations with the real world, implies a never-ending watch 
kept over him. The consciousness of being thus " shadowed " 
destroys in the youth all elasticity of spirit, all confidence, and 
all originality. A constant feeling of, as it were, a detective 
police at his side obscures all sense of independent action, sys- 
tematically accustoming him to dependence. Though, as the 
tragic-comic story of Peter Schlemihl shows, the loss of a man's 
own shadow may involve him in a series of fatalities,^ yet to be 
"shadowed" constantly by a companion, as in the pedagog- 
ical system of the Jesuits, undermines all naturalness. And, 
if we endeavor to guard too strictly against what is evil and 
wrong, the pupil reacts, bringing all his intelligence into the 
service of his craft and cunning, till the would-be educator 
stands aghast at the discovery of such evil-doing as he had 
supposed impossible under his strict supervision. Within the 
circle of whatever rules it may be found necessary to draw 
around the young there must alwaj's be left space for freedom. 
Pupils should always be led to sec that all rules against which 
they^fret are only of their own creation ; and that as grave-stones 
mark the place where some one has fallen, so every law is 
only a record of some previous wrong-doing. The law " Thou 
shalt not kill " was not given till murder had been committed. 
In other words, the wrong deed preceded the law against it, 
and perfect obedience is the same as perfect freedom. No obe- 
dience except that which we gain from the pupil's own convic- 
tions has real educational significance. 

§ 35. If there appears in the youth any decided deformity 
opposed to the ideal which we would create in him, we should at 



^0 The story of Peter Schlemihl, by Chamisso, may be read in the English trans- 
lation published in "Hedge's German Prose Writers." 



TJie Science of Education. 27 

once inquire into its history and origin. Tlie negative and 
positive are so closely related, and depend so intimately on 
each other, in our being that what appears to us to l)e neg- 
ligence, rudeness, immorality, foolishness, or oddity may 
arise from some real necessity of the pupil which in its process 
of development has only taken a wrong direction. 

§ 36. If it should appear, on such examination, that the 
wrong action was the result of avoidable ignorance, of caprice, 
or willfulness on the part of the pupil, this calls for a simple pro- 
hibition on the part of the teacher, no reason being assigned. 
His authority must be sufficient for tlic pupil without any 
reason. When the fault is repeated, and the pupil is old 
enough to understand, then onl}^ should the grounds of the 
prohibition be stated with it. This should, however, be done 
in few words, and the educator must never allow himself to 
lose, in a doctrinal Icctui'e, the idea of discipline. If he do, 
the pupil will soon forget that it was his own misbehavior 
which was the cause of all the remarks. The statement of 
the reason must be honest, and must be presented to the youth 
on the side most easy for him to appreciate. False reasons 
are not only morally wrong, but they lead the mind astray. 
We also commit a grave error when we try to unfold to the 
youth all the possible consequences of his wrong act, for those 
possible consequences are too far otf to atlect his mind. The 
long lecture wearies him, especially if it be in a stereotj'ped 
form ; and with teachers who are fault-finding, and who like to 
hear themselves talk, this is apt to be the case. Still more 
unfortunate would it be if we really should atfect the lively 
imagination of a sensitive youth by our description of the 
wretchedness to Avhich his wrong-doing, if persisted in, might 
lead him, for then the conviction that he has already taken 
one step in that direction may produce in him a fear which in 
the future man may become terrible depression and lead to 
degradation. 

§ 37. If to censure we add the threat of punishment, we 
have then what in common language is called scolding. 

If threats are made, the pupil must be made to feel that 
they will be faithfully executed according to the word. 



28 TJie Science of E ducat ion. 

The threat of punishineiit is, howevei', to be uvoided ; for cir- 
cuinstaiices may arise which will render its fulfillment not only 
objectionable, but wrong, and the teacher will then find himself 
in the position of Herod and bound " for his oath's sake " to a 
course of action which no longer seems the best. Even the 
law in affixing a penalty to definite crimes allows a certain 
latitude in a maximum and minimum of awarded punishment. 

§ 38. It is only after other means of reformation have been 
tried, and have failed, that punishment is justifiable for error, 
transgression, or vice. AA'hen our simple [)rohibition (§ 36), 
the statement of our reason for the prohibiti()n( § 3()), and threat 
of punishment (§ 37) have all failed, then [)unishment comes 
and intentionally inflicts pain on the youth in order to force 
him by this last means to a realization of his wrong-doing. And 
here the punishment must not be given for general bad conduct 
or for a perverse dis[)osition — those being vague generalities — 
but for a s})ecial act of wrong-doing at that time. He i^honld 
not be punished because he is naturalh' bad or because he is 
generall}' naughty, but for this one special and particular act 
which he has committed. Thus the punishment will act on the 
general disposition, not directly, but through this })articidar 
act, as a manifestation of the disposition. Then it will not 
accuse the innermost nature of the culprit. This way of 
punishment is not only demanded by justice, Init it is absolutely 
necessary in view of the fact of the sophistry inherent in 
human nature which is alwaj's busy in assigning various 
motives for its actions. If the child understands, then, that he 
is punished for that particular act which he knows himself to 
have committed, he cannot feel the bitter sense of injustice 
and misunderstanding which a punishment inflicted for general 
reasons, and which attributes to him a depravity of motives 
and intentions, so often engenders. 

§ 39. Punishment as an educ^ational means must, neverthe- 
less, be always essentially corrective, since it seeks always to 
bring the youth to a comprehension of his wrong-doing and to 
a positive alteration in his behavior, and, hence, has for its aim 
to improve him." At the same time it is a sad testimony of 
the insufficiency of the means which have been previously tried. 



The Science of Education. 29 

We .should on no account aim to tenify the 3'outli by physical 
force, so that to avoid that he will letVain from doing the 
wrong or from repeating a wrong act alread}^ done. This 
would lead only to terrorism, and his growing strength would 
soon put him beyond its power and leave him without motive 
for refraining from evil. Punishment may have this effect in 
some degree, but it should, above all, be made to impress deeply 
upon his mind the eternal truth that the evil deed is never 
allowed in Clod's universe to act unrestrained and according to 
its oAvn will, but that the good and true is the only absolute 
power in the world, and that it is never at a loss to avenge any 
contradiction of its will and design. 

It may be questioned whether the moral teaching in our 
schools be not too negative in its measures ; whether it do 
not conHne itself too much to forbidding the commission of the 
wrong deed, and s[)end too little force in securing the per- 
formance of the right deed. Not a simple refraining from the 
Avrong, but an active doing of the right would be the better 
lesson to inculcate. 

In the laws of the state the ottice of punishment is first to 
satisfy justice,^ and onl}^ after this is done can the improve- 
ment of the criminal be considered. If government should 
proceed on the same basis as the educator, it would make a 
grave mistake, for it has to deal, not with children, but with 
adults, to whom it concedes the dignity of full responsil)ility 
for all their acts. It has not to consider the reasons, either 
psychological or ethical, which [)rompted the deed. The 
actual deed is what it has first of all to deal with, and only 
after that is considered and settled can it take into view any 



'^ That is, punishnient is retributive and not corrective. Justice requires that 
each man shall have the fruits of his own deeds ; in this it assumes tliat each 
and every man is free and self-determined. It proposes to treat each man as free, 
and as the rightful owner of his deed and its consequences. If he does a deed 
which is destructive to human rights, it shall destroy his rights and deprive him of 
property, personal freedom, or even of life. But corrective punishment assumes 
immaturity of development and consequent lack of freedom. It belongs to the 
period of nurture, and not to the period of maturity. The tendency in our 
schools is, however, to displace the forms of mere corrective punishment (cor- 
poral chastisement), and to substitute for them forms founded on retribution — 
e. g., deprivation of privileges. See sees. 42 and 43. 



30 The Science of Education. 

mitii^ntino;' circumstances connected therewith, or any pecul- 
iarity of the individual. The educator, on the other hand, 
has to deal with those who are immature and only growing 
toward responsibility. As long as they are under the care of 
a teacher, he js at any rate partially account:d)le for what they 
do. We must never confound the nature of punishment in the 
State with that of punishment as an educational means. 

§ 40. As to punishment, as with all other work in edncation, 
it can never be abstractly determined beforehand, l)utit must be 
regulated with a view to the individual pupil and his peculiar 
circumstances. What it shall be, and how and when adminis- 
tered, are problems which call for great ingenuity and tact ou 
the part of the educator. It must uever be forgotten that 
punishments var}^ in intensity at the will of the educator. He 
fixes the standard by which they are measured in the child's 
mind. AYhipping is actual physical pain, and an evil in itself 
to the child. But there are many other punishments which 
involve no physical pain, and the intensity of which, as felt by 
the child, varies according to an artificial standard in dif- 
ferent schools. "To sit under the clock" was a great pun- 
ishment in one of our public schools — not that the seat was 
not perfectly comfortable, l)ut that one was never sent there 
to sit unless for some grave misdemeanor. The teacher has 
the matter in his own hands, and it is well to remember this 
and to grade his punishments with much caution, so as to 
make all pass for their full value. In some schools even sus- 
pension is so common that it does not seem to the pupil a 
very terrible thing. " Familiarity breeds contempt," and fre- 
quency implies familiarity. A punishment seldom resorted to 
will always seem to the pupil to be severe. As we weaken, 
and in fact bankrupt, language hy an inordinate use of super- 
latives, so, also, do we weaken any punishment by its fre- 
quent repetition. Economy of resources should be always 
practiced. 

§ 41. In general, we might say that, for very young children, 
corporal punishment is most appropriate ; for boys and girls, 
isolation ; and for older youth, something which appeals to the 
sense of honor. 



The Science of Education. 31 

§ 42. (1) Corporal punishment implies physical pain. Gen- 
erally it consists of a whipping, and this is perfectly justihable 
in case of persistent defiance of authority, of obstinate care- 
lessness, or of malicious evil-doing, so long or so often as the 
higher perceptions of the offender are closed against appeal. 
But it must not be administered too often, or with undue se- 
verity. To resort to deprivation of food is cruel. But, while 
we condemn the false view of seeing in the rod the only pana- 
cea for all embarrassing questions of discipline on the teach- 
er's part, we can have no sympathy for the sentimentality 
which assumes that the dignity of humanity is affected by 
a blow given to a child. It is wrong thus to confound self- 
conscioi,is humanity with child-humanity, for to the average 
child himself a blow is the most natural form of retribution, 
and that in which all other efforts at influence at last end , 
The fully grown man ought, certainly, not to be flogged, for 
this kind of punishment places him on a level with the child ; 
or, where it is barbarously inflicted, reduces him to the level of 
the l)rute, and thus absolutely does degrade him. In English 
schools the rod is said to l)e often used : if a pupil of the flrst 
class, who is never flogged, is put back into the second, he be- 
comes again subject to flogging. But, even if this be necessary 
in the schools, it certainly has no proper place in the army 
and navy. 

§ 43. (2) To punish a })npil by isolation is to remove him 
temporarily from the society of his fellows. The boy or girl 
thus cut oft* from companionship, and forced to think only of 
himself, begins to understand how helpless he is in such a 
position. Time passes wearily, and he is soon eager to re- 
turn to the companionship of parents, brothers and sisters, 
teachers and fellow-students. 

But to leave a child entirely by himself without any super- 
vision, and perhaps in a dark room, is as wrong as to leave two 
or three together without supervision. It often happens when 
they are kept after school b}' themselves that they give the 
freest rein to their childish wantonness, and commit the wildest 
pranks . 

§ 44. (3) Shutting children up in this way does not touch 



32 The Science of Education. 

their sense of honor, and the punishment is soon forgotten, 
because it rehites only to certain particuhir phases of their 
behavior. But it is quite different when the pupil is isolated 
from his fellows on the ground that by his conduct he has 
violated the very principles which make civilized society 
possible, and is, therefore, no longer a proper member of it. 
This is a punishment which touches his sense of honor, for 
honor is the recognition of the individual hy others as their 
equal, and l)y his error, or by his crime, he had forfeited his 
right to be their equal, their peer, and has thus severed 
himself from them. 

The separation from them is thus only the external form of 
the real separation which he himself has brought to pass with- 
in his soul, and which his wrong-doing has only made clearly 
visible. This kind of punishment, thus touching the whole 
character of the youth and not easily forgotten, should be 
administered with the greatest caution lest a permanent loss of 
self-respect follow. When we think our wrong-doing to be 
eternal in its effects, we lose all power of effort for our own 
improvement. 

This sense of honor cannot be deveh)ped so well in family 
life, because in the family the ties of blood make all in a cer- 
tain sense equal, no matter what may be their conduct. He 
who has l)y wrong-doing severed himself from society is still a 
member of the family, and within its sacred circle is still be- 
loved, though it may be with bitter tears. No matter how 
wrong he may have been, he still can find there the deepest 
sympathy, for he is still father, brother, etc. It is in the con- 
tact of one family with another that the feeling of honor is 
first developed, and still more in the contact of the individual 
with an institution which is not bound to him by any natural 
ties, but is an organism entirely external to him. Thus, to the 
child, the school and the school-classes ofi'er a means of devel- 
opment which can never be found in the family. 

This fact is often overlooked by those who have the charge 
of the education of children. No home education, no private 
tutorship, can take the place of the school as an educational 
influence. For the first time in his life the child, on being 



The Science of Education. 33 

sent to school, finds himself in a comnuniity where he is re- 
sponsible for his own deeds, and where he has no one to shield 
him. The rights of others for whom he has no special affec- 
tion are to be respected by him, and his own are to be de- 
fended. The knowledge gained at the school is by no means 
the most valnable acqnisition there obtained. It mnst never 
be forgotten b}^ the teacher that the school is an institution on 
an entirely different basis from the family, and that personal 
attachment is not the principle on which its rule can be rightly 
based . 

§ 45. This gradation of punishment from physical pain, up 
through occasional isolation, to the touching of the innermost 
sense of honor is ver}^ carefully to be considered, both with 
regard to the different ages at which they are severally appro- 
priate and to the different discipline which they necessarily 
produce. Every punishment must, however, be always looked 
at as a means to some end, and is thus transitory in its nature. 
The pupil should always be conscious that it is painful to the 
teacher to punish him. Nothing can be more effectual as a 
means of cure for the wrong-doer than to perceive in the man- 
ner and tone of the voice, in the very delay with which the 
necessary punishment is administered, that he who punishes 
also suffers in order that the wrong-doer may ])e cured of his 
fault. The principle of vicarious suffering lies at the root of 
all spiritual healing. 

///. — Tlie Limits of Education. 

§ 4(5. As far as the external form of education is concerned, 
its limit is reached in the instrumentality of punishment in 
which we seek to turn the activity which has been employed in 
a wrong direction into its proper channel, to make the deed 
positive instead of negative, to substitute for the destructive 
deed one which shall be in harmony with the constructive 
forces of society. But education implies its real limits 
in its definition, which is to build up the individual into 
theoretical and practical Reason. When this work goes prop- 
erly on, the authority of the educator, as authority, necessarily 
3 



34 The Science of Education. 

loses, every day, some of its force, us the guiding principles 
come to form a part of the pupil's own character, instead of 
being super-imposed on him from without through the media- 
tion of the educator. What was authority becomes now ad- 
vice and example ; unreasoning and implicit obedience passes 
into gratitude and affection. The pupil wears oft" the rough 
edges of his crude individuality, which is transfigured, so to 
speak, into the universality and necessity of Reason, but with- 
out losing his identity in the process. Work becomes enjoy- 
ment, and Phi}^ is found only in a change of activity. The 
youth takes possession of himself, and may now be left to him- 
self. There are two widely differing views with regard to the 
limits of education ; one lays great stress on the powerlessness 
of the pupil and the great power of the teacher, and asserts 
that the teacher must create something out of the pupil. 

This view is often seen to have undesirabk^ results, where 
large mnnbers are to be educated together. It assumes that 
each pupil is only " a sample of the lot " on whom the teacher 
is to affix his stamp, as if they were different pieces of goods 
from some factory. Thus individuality is destroyed, and all 
reduced to one level, as in cloisters, ])arracks, and orphan asy- 
lums, where only one individual seems to exist. Sometimes it 
takes the form of a theory which holds that one can at will 
flog anything into or out of a pupil. This may be called a 
superstitious belief in the power of education. The opposite 
extreme may be found in that system which advocates a " se- 
vere letting alone," asserting that individuality is unconquer- 
able, and that often the most careful and circmnspect education 
fails of reaching its aim l)ecause the inherent nature of the 
vouth has fought against it with such force as to render abort- 
ive all opposing efforts. This idea of Pedagogy produces a 
sort of indifference about means and ends which would leave 
each individuality to grow as its own instinct and the chance 
influences of the world might direct. The latter view would, 
of course, preclude the possibility of any science of education, 
and make the youth only the sport of blind fate. The com- 
parative power of inherited tendencies and of educational aji- 
pliances is, however, one which every educator slioidd carefully 



The Science of Education. 35 

study. Much careless generalizjitiou has been made on this 
topic, and opinion is too often based upon some one instance 
where accurate observation of methods and intluences have 
been wanting. 

§ 47. Education has necessarily a definite, subjective limit 
in the individuality of the- youth, for it can develop in him only 
that which exists in him as a possibility. It can lead and 
assist, but it has no power to create. What nature has denied 
to a man education cannot give him, any more than it can on 
the other hand annihilate his original gifts, though it may 
suppress, distort, and measurably destroy them. And yet it is 
impossible to decide what is the real essence of a man's indi- 
viduality until he has left behind him the years of growth, 
because it is not till then that he fully attains conscious 
possession of himself. Moreover, at this critical time many 
traits which were supposed to be characteristic may prove 
themselves not to be so by disap[)earing, while long-slumbering 
and nnsuspected talents may crop out. AVhatever has been 
forced upon a child, though not in harmony Avith his individu- 
ality, Avhatever has been driven into \\\\\\ without having been 
actively accepted by him, or having had a definite relation to 
his culture — will remain perhaps, but only as an external 
foreign ornament, only as a parasitic growth which weakens 
the force of his real nature. But we must distinguish from 
these little affectations which arise from a misconception of 
the limits of individuality that effort of imitation which 
children and young i)eople often exhibit in trving to co})y in 
their own actions those pecidiarities which thej^ observe and 
admire in perfectly-developed [)ersons with whom they may 
come in contact. They see a reality which corres[)onds to their 
own possibility, and the presentiment of a like or a similar 
attainment stirs them to imitation, although this external 
imitation may be sometimes disagreeal)le or ridiculous to the 
lookers-on. AVe ought not to censure it too severely, remem- 
bering that it springs from a positive striving towards true 
culture, and needs only to l)e pro[)erly directed, and never to 
be roughly put down. 

§ 48. The objective limit of education consists in the means 



36 Tlie Science of Education. 

which can be applied for it. That the capacity for culture 
should exist is the first condition of success, but it is none the 
less necessur}^ that it be cultivated. But how much cultivation 
shall be given to it must depend in very great degree on the 
means which are practicable, and this will undoubtedly again 
depend on the worldly possessions and character of the family 
to which the pupil belongs. If he comes of a cultivated and 
refined family, he will have a great advantage at the start over 
his less favored comrades ; and, with regard to many of the arts 
and sciences, this limitation of education is of o-reat sio:nificance. 
But the means alone will not answer. Without natural capac- 
ity, all the educational api)aratus possible is of no avail. On 
the other hand, real talent often accomplishes incredible feats 
with very limited means ; and, if the way is only once open, 
makes of itself a center of attraction which draws to itself as 
with magnetic power the necessary means. Moral culture is, 
however, from its very nature, raised above such de[)endence. 

If we fix our thought on the subjective limit — that of indi- 
vidualit}^ (§ 47) — we detect the ground for that indifference 
which lays little stress on education (§ 46, end). If, on the 
other hand, Ave concentrate our attention on the means of cul- 
ture, we shall perceive the reason of the other extreme spoken 
of — of that pedagogical despotism (§ 46) which fancies that 
it is able to prescribe and enforce at will upon the pupil any 
culture whatever, without regard to his special characteristics. 

§ 49. Education comes to its absolute limit when the pupil 
has apprehended the prol)lem which he is to solve, has com- 
prehended the means which are at his disposal, and has acquired 
the necessary skill in using them. The true educator seeks to 
render himself unnecessary b}^ the complete emancipation of 
the youth. lie works always towards the independence of the 
pu})!!, and always with the design of withdrawing so soon as 
he shall have reached this stand-point, and of leaving him to 
the full responsibility for his own deeds. To endeavor to hold 
him in the position of a pupil after this time has been reached 
would be to contradict the very essence of education, which 
must find its result in the independent maturity of the youth. 
The inequality which formerly existed between pupil and 



TJie Science of Education. 37 

teacher is now removed, and nothing l)econies more oppressive 
to the former than any endeavor to force npon him the an- 
thority from which, in reality, his own efforts have freed him. 
But the nndne hastenino- of this ennmcipation is as l)ad an 
error as an effort after dehiy. The question as to whether a 
person is really ready for independent action — as to whether 
his education is finished — may be settled in much the same 
way in education as in politics. AVhen any people has pro- 
gressed so far as to put the question whether they are ready 
for freedom, it ceases to be a question ; for, without the inner 
consciousness of freedom itself, the question would never have 
occurred to them. 

§ 50. But, although the pu[)il may rightly now l)e freed from 
the hands of instructors, and no longer obtain his culture 
through them, it is l)y no means to be understood that he is 
not to go on with the work himself. He is now to educate 
himself. Each must plan out for himself the ideal toward which 
he must daily strive. In this [)rocess of self-transformation a 
friend may aid by advice and example, l)ut he cannot educate, 
for the act of educating necessardy implies inequality between 
teacher and pupil. The human necessity for companionship 
gives rise to societies of different kinds, in which we may, per- 
haps, say that there is some approach to educating their mem- 
bers, the necessary inequality being supplied l)y various grades 
and orders. They presupi)ose education in the usual sense of 
the word, but they wish to bring about an education in a higher 
sense, and, therefore, they veil the last form of their ideal in 
mystery and secrecy. 

By the term Pliilister the Germans indicate the man of a 
civilized state who lives on, contented with himself and devoid 
of any impulse towards further self-culture. To one who is 
always aspiring after an Ideal, such a one cannot but be repul- 
sive. But how mau}^ are they who do not, sooner or later, in 
mature life, crystallize, as it were, so that any active life, any 
new progress, is to them inq)ossible? 



ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY. 

§ 1. Pedagogics is not a complete, independent science by itself. 
It borrows the resnlts of other sciences [e. g., it presupposes the 
science of Rights, treating of the institutions of the family and civil 
society, as well as of the State ; it presupposes the science of anthro- 
pology, in which is treated the relations of the human mind to nature. 
Nature conditions the development of the individual human being. 
But the history of the individual and the history of the race presents 
a continual emancipation from nature, and a continual growth into 
freedom, i. e., into ability to know himself and to realize himself in 
the world by making the matter and forces of the world his instruments 
and tools. Anthropology shows us how man as a natural being — 
i. e., as having a body — is limited. There is climate, involving heat 
and cold and moisture, the seasons of the year, etc. ; there is organic 
growth, involving birtli. growth, reproduction, and deca}'^ ; there is 
race, involving the limitations of heredity ; there is the telluric life 
of the planet and the circulation of the forces of the solar sys- 
tem, whence arise the processes of sleeping, waking, dreaming, and 
kindred phenomena; there is the emotional nature of man, involving 
his feelings, passions, instincts, and desires ; then there are the five 
senses, and their conditions. Then, there is the science of phenom- 
enology, treating of the steps by which mind rises from the stage of 
mere feeling and sense-perception to that of self-consciousness, i. e., 
to a recognition of mind as true substance, and of matter as mere 
phenomenon created V)y Mind (God). Then, there is psychol- 
ogy, including the treatment of the stages of activity of mind, as 
so-called "faculties" of the mind, e. r/., attention, sense-perception, 
imagination, conception, understanding, judgment, reason, and the like. 
Ps3'chology is generally made (by English writers) to include, also, 
what is here called anthropology and phenomenology. After [isychol- 
ogy, there is the science of ethics, or of morals and customs ; then, the 
Science of Rights, already mentioned ; then. Theology, or the Science 
of Religion, and, after all these, there is Pliilosophy, or the Science of 
Science. Now, it is clear that the Science of Education ti'eats of 
the process of development, by and through which man, as a merely 



The Science of Education. 39 

natural being, becomes spirit, or self-conscious mind ; hence, it 
presupposes all the sciences named, and will be defective if it ignores 
nature, or mind, or any stage or process of either, especially An- 
thropology, Plienonienology, Ps3'chology, Ethics, Eights, ^Esthetics, 
or Science of Art and Literature, Religion, or Philosophy']. 

§ 2. The scope of pedagogics being so broad, anddts presuppositions 
so vast, its limits are not well defined, and its treatises are very apt 
to lack logical sequence and conclusion ; and, indeed, frequently to 
be mere collections of unjustified and unexplained assumptions, 
dogmatically set forth. Hence the low repute of pedagogical litera- 
ture as a whole. 

§ 3. Moreover, education furnisl)es a special vocation, that of 
teaching. (All vocations are specializing — being cut off, as it were, 
from the total life of man. The "division of labor" requires that 
each individual sliall concentrate his endeavors and be a ixirt of the 
whole). 

§ 4. Pedagogics, as a special science, belongs to the collection of 
sciences (already described, in commenting on § 1) inf;luded under 
the philosophy of Spirit or Mind, and more particularly to that part 
of it which relates to the will (ethics and science of rights, rather 
than to the part relating to the intellect and feeling, as anthropology, 
phenomenology, psychology, aesthetics, and religion. "Theoretical" 
relates to the intellect^ "practical" relates to the wili, U\ this phil- 
osophy). The province of practical philosophy is the investigation 
of the nature of freedom, and the process of securing it by self- 
emancipation from nature. Pedagogics involves the conscious exer- 
tion of influence on the part of the will of the teacher upon the will 
of the pupil, with a purpose in view — that of inducing the pupil to 
form certain prescribed habits, and adopt prescribed views and in- 
clinations. The entire science of mind (as above shown), is pre- 
supposed by the science of education, and must be kept constantly 
in view as a guiding light. The institution of the family (treated in 
practical philosophy) is the starting-point of education, and without 
this institution properly realized, education would find no solid 
foundation. The right to be educated on the part of children, and 
the duty to educate on the part of parents, are reciprocal ; and there 
is no family life so poor and rudimentary that it does not furnish the 
most important elements of education — no matter what the subse- 
quent influence of the school, the vocation, and the state. 

§ 5. Pedagogics as science, distinguished from the same as an art: 
the former containing the abstract general treatment, and the latter 



40 The Science of Education. 

taking into consideration all the conditions of concrete individuality, 
e. g., the peculiarities of the teacher and the pupil, and all the local 
circumstances, and the power of adaptation known as "tact." 

§ 6. The special conditions and peculiarities, considered in educa- 
tion as an art, may be formulated and reduced to system, but they 
should not be introduced as a part of the science of education. 

§ 7. Pedagogics has three parts: first, it considers the idea and 
nature of education, and arrives at its true definition ; second, it pre- 
sents and describes the special provinces into which the entire field 
of education is divided ; third, it considers the historical evolution of 
education by the human race, and the individual systems of educa- 
tion that have arisen, flourished, and decayed, and their special func- 
tions in the life of man. 

§ 8. The scope of the first part is easy to define. The history of 
pedagogics, of course, contains all the ideas or definitions of the 
nature of education ; but it must not for that reason be substituted 
for the scientific investigation of the nature of education, which alone 
should constitute this first part (and the history of education be 
reserved for the third part). 

§ 9. The second part includes a discussion of the threefold nature 
of man as body, intellect, and will. The difficulty in this part of the 
science is very great, because of its dependence upon other sciences 
(e. g., upon physiology, anthropology, etc.), and because of the 
temptation to go into details (e. g., in the practical department, to 
consider the endless varieties of schools for arts and trades). 

§ 10. The third part contains the exposition of the various 
national standpoints furnished (in the hl&tory of the world) for the 
bases of particular systems of education. In each of these S3steras 
will be found the general idea underlying all education, but it will be 
found existing under special modifications, which have arisen through 
its application to the phj'sical, intellectual, and ethical conditions of 
the people. But we can deduce the essential features of the differ- 
ent systems that may appear in histor}^, for there are only a limited 
number of systems possil)le. Eacii lower form finds itself comple- 
mented in some higher form, and its function and purpose then become 
manifest. The sj^stems of "national" education {i. e., Asiatic sys- 
tems, in which the individuality of each person is swallowed up in the 
substantiality of the national idea — just as the individual waves get 
lost in the ocean on whose surface they arise) find their complete ex- 
planation in the systems of education that arise in Christianity (the 
preservation of human life being the object of the nation, it follows 



The Science of Education. 41 

that when realized abstractly or exclusively, it absorbs and annuls the 
mental independence of its subjects, and thus contradicts itself by 
destroying the essence of what it undertakes to preserve, i. e., life 
(soul, mind) ; but within Christianity the principle of the state is 
found so modified that it is consistent with the infinite, untram- 
melled development of the individual, intellectually and morally, and 
thus not only life is saved, but spiritual, free life is attainable for 
each and for all). 

§ 11. The history of pedagogy ends with the present system as 
the latest one. As science sees the future ideally contained in the 
present, it is bound to comprehend the latest system as a realization 
(though imperfect) of the ideal system of education. Hence, the 
system, as scientifically treated in the first part of our work, is the 
system with which the third part of our vrork ends. 

§ 12. The nature of education, its form, its limits, are now to be 
investigated. (§§ 13-50.) 

§ 13. The nature of education determined by the nature of Mind 
or Spirit, whose activity is always devoted to realizing for itself what 
it is potentially — to becoming conscious of its possibilities, and to 
getting them under the control of its will. Mind is potentially free. 
Education is the means by which man seeks to realize in man his 
possibilities (to develop the possibilities of the race in each indi- 
vidual). Hence, education has freedom for its object. 

§ 14. Man is the only being capable of education, in the sense 
above defined, because the only conscious being. He must know 
himself ideally, and then realize his ideal self, in order to become 
actually free. The animals not the plants ma}'^ be trained^ or culti- 
vated, but, as devoid of self-consciousness (even the highest animals 
not getting above impressions, not reaching ideas, not seizing gen- 
eral or al)stract thoughts), they are not realized for themselves, but 
only for us. (That is, they do not know their ideal as we do.) 

§ 15. Education, taken in its widest compass, is the education of 
the human race by Divine Providence. 

§ 16. In a narrower sense, education is applied to the shaping of 
the individual, so that his caprice and arbitrariness shall give place to 
rational habits and views, in harmony with nature and ethical cus- 
toms. He must not abuse nature, nor slight the ethical code of his 
people, nor despise the gifts of Providence (whether for weal or 
woe), unless he is willing to be crushed in the collision with these 
more substantial elements. 

§ 17. In the narrowest, but most usual application of the terra, 



42 Tlie Science of Education. 

we understand by " education " the influence of the individual upon 
the individual, exerted with the object of developing his powers in a 
conscious and methodical manner, either generally or in special 
directions, the educator being relativel3' mature, and exercising 
authority over the relatively immature pupil. Without authority on 
the one hand and obedience on the other, education would lack 
its ethical basis — a neglect of the will-training could not be com- 
pensated for by any amount of knowledge or smartness. 

§ 18. The general province of education includes the development 
of the individual into the theoretical and practical reason immanent 
in him. The definition which limits education to the development of 
the individual into ethical customs (obedience to morality, social 
conventionalities, and the laws of the state — Hegel's definition is 
here referred to : " The object of education is to make men ethical ") 
is not comprehensive enough, because it ignores the side of the intel- 
lect, and takes note only of the toill. The individual should not only 
be man in general (as he is through the adoption of moral and 
ethical forms — which are general forms, customs, or laws, and thus 
the forms imposed by the ivill of the race), but he should also be 
a self-conscious subject, a particular individual (man, through his 
intellect, exists for himself as an individual, while through his general 
habits and customs he loses his individuality and spontaneity). 

§ 19. Education has a definite object in view and it proceeds by 
grades of progress toward it. The systematic tendency is essential 
to all education, properly so called. 

§ 20. Division of labor has become requisite in the higher spheres 
of teaching. The growing multiplicity of branches of knov/ledge 
creates the necessity for the specialist as teacher. With this tendency 
to specialties it becomes more and more difficult to preserve what 
is so essential to the pupil — his rounded human culture and s^mmetr^'' 
of development. The citizen of modern civilization sometimes 
appears to be an artificial product by the side of the versatility of 
the savage man. 

§ 21. From this necessity of the division of labor in modern times 
there arises the demand for two kinds of educational institutions — 
those devoted to general education (common schools, colleges, etc.), 
and special schools (for agriculture, medicine, mechanic arts, etc). 

§ 22. The infinite i)ossibility of culture for the individual leaves, 
of course, his actual accomplishment a mere approximation to a 
complete education. Born idiots are excluded from the possibility of 
education, because the lack of universal ideas in their consciousness 



The Science of Education. 43 

precludes to that class of unfortunates anything beyond a mere 
mechanical training. 

§ 23. Spirit, or mind, makes its own nature ; it is what it pro- 
duces — a self-result. From this follows the/(>?-m of education. It 
commences with ( 1 ) undeveloped mind — that of the infant — wherein 
nearly all is potential, and but little is actualized; (2) its first stage 
of development is self-estrangement — it is absorbed in the observa- 
tion of objects around it; (3) but it discovers laws and principles 
(universality) in external nature, and finally identifies them with rea- 
son — it comes to recognize itself in nature — to recognize conscious 
mind as the creator and preserver of the external world — and thus 
becomes at home in nature. Education does not create, but it eman- 
cipates. 

§ 24. This process of self-estrangement and its removal belongs to 
all culture. The mind must fix its attention upon whai is foi'eign to 
it, and penetrate its disguise. It will discover its own substance 
under the seeming alien being. Wonder is the accompaniment of this 
stage of estrangement. The love of travel and adventure arises from 
this basis. 

§ 25. Labor is distinguished from play : The former concentrates 
its energies on some object, with the purpose of making it conform to 
its will and purpose ; pla}- occupies itself with its object according to 
its caprice and arbiti-ariness, and has no care for the results or pro- 
ducts of its activity ; work is prescribed by authority, while play is 
necessarily spontaneous. 

§ 26. Work and Play: the distinction between tliem. In play the 
child feels that he has entire control over the object with which he is 
dealing, both in respect to its existence and the object for which it 
exists. His arbitrary will may change both with perfect impunity, 
since all dei)ends upon his caprice ; he exercises his powers in play ac- 
cording to his natural proclivities, and therein finds scope to devel- 
ope his own individuality. In work, on the contrary, he must have 
respect for the object with which he deals. It must be held sacred 
against his caprice, must not be destroyed nor injured in any 
way, and its object must likewise be respected. His own personal 
inclinations must be entirely subordinated, and the business that he 
is at work upon must be carried forward in accordance with its 
own ends and aims, and without reference to his own feelings in the 
matter. 

Thus work teaches the pupil the lesson of self-sacrifice (the right 
of superiority which the general interest possesses over the particular), 
while play develops his personal idiosyncrasy. 



44 The Science of Education. 

§ 27. Without play, the child would become more and more a ma- 
chine, and lose all freshness and spontaneity — all originality. With- 
out work, he would develop into a monster of caprice and arbitrari- 
ness. 

From the fact that man must learn to combine with man, in order 
that the individual may avail himself of the experience and labors 
of his fellow-men, self-sacrifice for the sake of combination is the 
great lesson of life. But as this sliould be voluntary self-sacrifice, 
education must train the child equally in the two directions of spon- 
taneity and obedience. The educated man finds recreation in change 
of work. 

§ 28. Education seeks to assimilate its object — to make what 
was alien and strange to the pupil into something familiar and habitual 
to him. [The ])upil is to attack, one after the other, the foreign 
realms in the world of nature and man, and conquer them for his own, 
so that he can be "' at home " in them. It is the necessary condition 
of all grovvth, all culture, that one widens his own individuality by 
this conquest of new provinces alien to him. By this the individual 
transcends the narrow limits of particularity and becomes generic — 
the individual becomes the species. A good definition of education 
is this: it is the process by which the individual man elevates himself 
to the species.] 

§ 29. (1) Therefore, the first requirement in education is that the 
pupil shall acquire the habit of subordinating his likes and dislikes to 
the attainment of a rational object. 

It is necessary that he shall acquire this indifference to his own 
pleasure, even by employing his powers on that which does not ap- 
peal to his interest in the remotest degree. 

§ 30. Habit soon makes us familiar with those subjects which 
seemed so remote from our personal interest, and they become agree- 
able to us. The objects, too, assume a new interest upon nearer ap- 
proach, as being useful or injurious to us. That is useful which serves 
VIS as a means for the realization of a rational purpose; injurious, if 
it hinders such realization. It happens that objects are useful in one 
sense and injurious in another, and vice versa. Education must 
make the pupil capable of deciding on the usefulness of an object, by 
reference to its effect on his permanent vocation in life. 

§ 31. But good and evil are the ethical distinctions wliicli furnish 
the absolute standard to which to refer the question of the usefulness 
of objects and actions. 

§ 32. (2) Habit is (a) passive, or (b) active. The passive habit 
s that wiiich gives us the power to retain our equipoise of mind in the 



The Science of Education. 45 

midst of a world of changes (pleasure and pain, grief and joy, etc). 
The active habit gives us skill, presence of mind, tact in emergen- 
cies, etc. 

§ 33. (3) Education deals altogether with the formation of habits. 
For it aims to make some condition or form of activity into a second 
nature for the pupil. But this involves, also, the breaking up of previ- 
ous habits. This power to break up habits, as well as to form them, 
is necessary to the freedom of the individual. 

§ 34. Education deals with these complementary relations (an- 
titheses): (a) authority and obedience; (b) rationality {general 
forms) and individuality ; (c) work and play ; (d) habit (general cus- 
tom) and spontaneity. The development and reconciliation of these 
opposite sides in the pupil's character, so that they become his second 
nature, removes the phase of constraint which at first accompanies 
the formal inculcation of rules, and the performance of prescribed 
tasks. The freedom of tlie pupil is the ultimate object to be kept in 
view, but a too early use of freedom may work injury to the pupil. 
To remove a pupil from all temptation would be to remove possi- 
bilities of growth in strength to resist it ; on the other hand, to ex- 
pose him needlessly to temptation is fiendish. 

§ 35. Defoi'raities of character in the pupil should be carefully 
traced back to their origin, so that they may be explained by their 
history. Only by comprehending the historic growth of an organic 
defect are we able to prescribe tlie best remedies. 

§ 36. If the negative behavior of the pupil (his bad behavior) 
results from ignorance due to his own neglect, or to his wilfulness, 
it should be met directl}' b}' an act of authority on the part of the 
teacher (and without an appeal to reason). An appeal should be 
made to the understanding of the pupil only when he is somewhat 
mature, or shows by his repetition of the offence that his proclivity 
is deep-seated, and requires an array of all good influences to rein- 
force his feeble resolutions to amend. 

§ 37. Reproof, accompanied bj- threats of punishment, is apt to de- 
generate into scolding. 

§ 38. After the failure of other means, punishment should be 
resorted to. Inasmuch as the punishment should be for the pur- 
pose of making the pupil realize that it is the consequence of his 
deed returning on himself, it should always be administered for 
some pai'ticular act of his, and this should be specified. The 
"overt act" is the only thing which a man can be held account- 
able for in a court of justice ; although it is true that the harboring 



46 The Science of Education. 

of evil thoughts or intentions is a sin, yet it is not a crime until 
realized in an overt act. 

§ 40. Punishment sliould be regulated, not by abstract rules, but in 
view of the particular case and its attending circumstances. 

§ 41. Sex and age of pupil should be regarded in prescribing the 
mode and degree of punishment. Corporal punishment is best for 
pupils who are ver}'^ immature in mind ; wlien they are more developed 
they may be punished by any imposed restraint upon their free wills 
which will isolate them from the ordinary routine followed by their 
fellow-pupils. (Deprivation of the right to do as others do is a 
wholesome species of punishment for those old or mature enough to 
feel its effects, for it tends to secure respect for the regular tasks by 
elevating them to the rank of rights and privileges.) For young men 
and women, the punishment should be of a kind that is based on a 
sense of honor. 

§ 42. (1) Corporal punishment should be properly administered by 
means of the rod, subduing wilful defiance by the application of 
force. 

§ 43. (2) Isolation makes the pupil realize a sense of his depend- 
ence upon human society, and upon the expression of this dependence 
b}' cooperation in the common tasks. Pupils should not be shut up in a 
darkroom, nor removed from the personal supervision of the teacher. 
(To shut up two or more in a room without supervision is not isola- 
tion, but association ; only it is association for mischief, and not for 
study. ) 

§ 44. (3) Punishment based on the sense of honor may or may 
not be based on isolation. It implies a state of maturity on the part 
of the pupil. Through his offence the pupil has destroyed his 
equality with his fellows, and has in reality, in his inmost nature, 
isolated himself from them. Corporal punishment is external, 
but it may be accompanied with a keen sense of dishonor. Isolation, 
also, may, to a pupil, who is sensitive to honor, be a severe blow to 
self-respect. But a punishment founded entirely on the sense of 
honor would be wholly internal, and have no external discomfort 
attached to it. 

§ 45. The necessity of carefully adapting the punishment to the 
age and maturity of the pupil, renders it the most difficult part of the 
teacher's duties. It is essential that the air and manner of the 
teacher who punishes should be that of one who acts from a sense of 
painful duty, and not from any delight in being the cause of suffer- 
ing. Not personal likes and dislikes, but the rational necessity which 



The Science of Education. 47 

is over teacher and pupil alike, causes the infliction of pain on the 
pupil. 

§ 46. Punishment is the final topic to be considered under the head 
of "Form of Education." 

In the act of punishment the teacher abandons the legitimate prov- 
ince of education, which seeks to make the pupil rational or obedient 
to what is reasonable, as a habit, and from his own free will. The pupil 
is punished in order that he may be made to conform to the rational, 
by the application of constraint. Another will is substituted for the 
jHipii's, and good behavior is produced, but not by the pupil's free 
act. While education finds a negative limit in punishment, it 
finds a positive limit in the accomplishment of its legitimate object, 
which is the emancipation of the pupil from the state of imbecility, 
as regards mental and moral self-control, into tlie ability to direct 
himself rationally. When the pupil has acquired the discipline which 
enables him to direct his studies properly, and to control his inclina- 
tions in such a manner as to pursue his work regularly, the teacher 
is no longer needed for him — he becomes his own teacher. 

There may be two extreme views on this subject — the one tending 
towards the negative extreme of requiring the teacher to do every- 
thing for the pupil, substituting his will for that of the pupil, and 
the other view tending to the positive extreme, and leaving everything 
to the pupil, even before his will is trained into habits of self-control, 
or his mind provided with the necessary elementary branches 
requisite for the prosecution of further stnd3\ 

§ 47. (1) The subjective limit of education (on the negative 
side) is to be found in the individuality of the pupil — the limit to his 
natural capacity. 

§ 48. (2) The objective limit to education lies in the amount of 
time that the person may devote to his training. It, therefore, 
depends largely upon wealth, or other fortunate circumstances. 

§ 49. (3) The absolute limit of education is the positive limit 
(see § 46), beyond which the youth passes into freedom from the 
school, as a necessary instrumentality for further culture. 

§ 50. The pre-arranged pattern-making work of the school is now 
done, but self-education may and should go on indefinitely, and will 
go on if the education of the school has really arrived at its " abso- 
lute " limit — i. e., has fitted the pupil for self-education. Emanci- 
pation from the school does not emancipate one from learning 
through his fellow-men. Man's spiritual life is one depending ui)on 
cooperation with his fellow-men. Each must avail himself of the 



48 The Science of Education. 

experience of his fellow-men, and in turn communicate his own 
experience to the common fund of the race. Thus each lives the 
life of the whole, and all live for each. School-education gives the 
pupil the instrumentalities with which to enable him to participate in 
this fund of experience — this common life of the race. After school- 
education comes the still more valuable education, which, however, 
without the school, would be in a great measure impossible. 



ERRATA. 

2 26. Last two paragraphs should be within quotation marks, being from an 

English author. 
2 29. The second and third paragraphs belong to ^ 30. — the numbering being 

omitted. 
2 33. Line four — "instructive" should be "intuitive." 



A PARAPHRASE 



Di 




Dr 



J 



lUO. 



T/z.^ translation of this valuahle work ivas pub- 
lished in 1872, and has met ivitli a wide and 
hospitable I'eception. The present Paraphrase and 
Analysis has been undertaken with a view to pre- 
sent the thoughts of the author in a more popular 
form, and thus make them accessible to a still 
larger public. 

Ihis work makes a pav^phlet of J^8 pages, which 
may be had separate or bound with the Translation 
of Pedagogics. 

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JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. 

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY, IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. 

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•WM. T. HARRIS, Box 2398, St. Louis, Mo. 



CONTENTS OF THE TWELFTH VOLUME. 



Contents of No. 1. 

I. Spencer's Definition of Mind. 
II. Hegel on Symbolic Art. 

III. The Nation and the Commune. 

IV. The Science of Education. 
V. Boole's Logical Method. 

VI. Notes and Discussions: — a) Sonnet 
to the Venus of Milo ; (2) Emanuel 
Hvalgren's System; (3) Notes on 
Hegel and his Critics; (4) Sentences 
in Prose and Verse. 



Contents of No. 2. 

I. The World as Force. 
II. Von Hartmann on the True and False 
in Darwinism. 

III. Hegel on Classic Art. 

IV. Fichte's Criticism of Schelling. 
V. Christianity and the Clearing- up. 

VI. Schelling on the Historical Construc- 
tion of Christianity. 
VII. Notes and Discussions: —In Memo- 
riam. 



Contents of No. 3. 

I. Some Considerations on the Notion of 

Space. 
II. Brute and Human Intellect. 

III. Hegel on Classic Art. 

IV. The Science of Education. 

V. Fichte's Criticism of Schelling. 
VI. Notes and Discussions: — (1) Sentences 
in Prose and Verse ; (2) Spiritual 
Epigrams; (3) A Fragment of the 
" Semitic" Philosopoy; (4) Dr. Pllei- 
derer's Philosophy of Religion ; 
(5) On the Multiplicity of Conscious 
Beings; (6) Polycrates sends Ana- 
creon Five Talents. 

Contents of No. 4. 
I. Christianity and the Clearing- up. 
II. Schiller's Ethical Studies. 

III. Jacobi anil fho Philosojihy of Faith. 

IV. Hegel on RouKuUic Art. 

V. Statement and Reduction of Syllogism. 
VI. Notes and Discussions: — (I) The Mor- 
al Purpose of Tourguenetf ; (2) Dr. 
Parson's Translation of Dante's 
Purgatorio. 



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THE SCIENCE 

EDUCATIO]^; 



OR :^^ 




Translated by A/ma U. Brackett from the German of CarL Rosenkranz, Professor af 
Philosophy at the University of Konigsberg. 



This work recommends itself to the thinking student of Education as tha 
clearest and most systematic exposition of the Philosophy ot Education. Its 
author, who has filled for forty years the chair of Philosophy at the Uuiversit-v 
of Konigsberg, is, in the best sense of that terra, an eclectic. Thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the present and past developments in Philosophy, both German 
and Greek, he has done very nuicli to make the deepest insights ot Hegel and 
Kant accessible to the popular reader. Especially in classilicatioa his genius 
appears to best advantage; the learned and profound work of Professor Schmid 
on the History of Pedagogics follows the scheme of division and classification 
set forth in this work of Rosenkranz. It is not voluminous, but suggestive in 
its minutest details. To the student of Psychology it is unusually interesting, 
as exhibiting the unfolding of the stages of mind in connection with the periods 
of life, and, besides this, a more complete sketch of the national development 
of these stages in the history of the world. In the latter respect, it forms an 
outline of the PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. 



THIS BOOK IS RECOMMENDED 

I. To teachers who desire to gain an insight, by private study, into the princi- 
ples underlying their profession. 

[[. To Normal Schools as a text-book on the Theory and History of Education, 
or as a book of reference. 

III. To the private student of Sociology, for whom it w'll possess special value 
as unfolding the principles of social and political development in History. 



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Scheme of Classification of Pedagogics as a System. 



Education i 



iu its General 
idea 



Part I. 



in its Special 
Elements 

Part II. 



in its Particular 
Systems 

Part III. 



its Nature 
its Form 
its Limits 

Physical 

Intellectual 

Moral 



National 



Passive 



Active 



Individual 



C Family 
Caste . . 
Monkish . 

f Military . 

■{ Priestly . 
I 
(. Industrial 

r ^Esthetic 

J Practical . 

I Abstract In 
(. dividual 



. China. 
. India. 
. Thibet. 

Persia. 

Egypt. 

PhaMiicia. 

Greece. 

Rome. 

j Northern 
( Barbarians. 



Tlieocratic Jews. 

Monkish 



Humanita- 
rian 



Chivalric r for Special (Jesuitic. 

Callings I pietistic. 



i, tor Civil Life ■{ to achieve an 
1 Weal of Cul- 
I ture 



fThe Huma- 
nities. 

The Philan- 
throi)ic, 
.Movcin't. 



(. for Free Citizenshii). 



This work makes a neat volume of about one hundred and fifty pages, and is 
arranged methodical Ij-, and divided into sections in such a manner as to fit it most 
admirably for a text-book for Normal Schools. As such it might profitably occupy 
the place in the course of study usually devoted to Mental Philosophy and Tlieory 
and Art of Teaching. It is emphatically a book for profound study — a book that 
Avill continually grow in appreciation the more it is studied. "While it is a compend 
of the entire subject, covering as it does, frst, a treatment of the nature, form, and 
limits of Education; secondly, its special elements, physical, intellectual, and moral; 
th'rdhj, a philosophic survey of the history of Education in all parts of the world; — 
on tlie other hanl, it is not so voluminous as to oblige the teacher to us3 it in n frag- 
mentary manner. It is just what a text-book ought to be — full of suggestions. 



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